ring tones

$2 per and a $1 per month to keep them ...
let's see .. 3 tunes (10-20 seconds) at $3 per + $12 annual ... no stinky way!
My father mentioned iTunes. They are $1 each ... so, I could pay $1 for a whole song, or $2 for a clip of a song?

That's just wrong. I haven't and won't buy any. That's like premium gas. Why? What do you get out of it? The manufacturer couldn't put together a high performance, efficient engine that ran on regular? Well, skip 'em!

Drinking too much

Maybe, it's not the beer. Maybe, it's the drinking.

High School Madness (series) ep. 1

"Who is PROG11309 and PROG11286 ?"

The two guilty parties in PASCAL class were given admonishment and a penalty. What was the crime?

Mr. Frey had special guests in the building and the room to look at the VAX 3000, during which time the class was to be seen and not heard. Johnson and someone else decided that the RQ command (request bell to verify that the printer was online and active) would be funny. It would be especially funny if you did it about every 5 seconds, offsetting each other, so that it pinged lightly about every 2.3 seconds. After about 20 minutes of this, students were called aside (see above).

Study hall ... senior year, I had two back to back. You weren't allowed to leave early, and the study hall ... no sleeping, no talking, no rustling of paper, no wriring of non-school work. Thankfully I had to endure that only 3 classes before other opportunities became available.

On ocassion, TS and I were able to slip out and eat lunch at a Mexican restaurant nearby. They had the free chips and salsa, so they didn't ever get much money from us while in high school.

--- back to PASCAL ---
Those unaware of this ancient mini-computer ... meaning the forced network of terminals to a refridgerator-sized computer may not understand the relative boringness of the system. It did, however have a few neat features. Before the globalization and broader use of the internet, people had no purpose in naming their computer. Now XP expects you to name it, as it is networked, either in a building, house, or the net. Naming was a neat feature back then. We would often entertain each other or chat through name changes. It was untrackable unlike phoning or mailing each other.

I was no stranger to adolenscent humor and rudeness of names. It was mostly a little geeky white boy class. I think there were two girls and two black boys in the class. Out of 18-24, that isn't a big ratio. Anyway ... I was out of school on one day, which saved me a little lambasting.

There was a list of users on the system, listed in order of account number, such as PROG (programming class) 1100 (PASCAL) 56 (person 56 out of 2 classes).

ACCOUNT NAME LOCATION
PROG110056 RUTHLESS FWWHSFWCS

now ... when you have a bunch of guys together, you have a list of names that you can read down the center making nearly a sentence, omitting those not participating. There were a couple of students who named their computer the same thing day in and out. On the day I was missing, sniff, sniff, apparently another nosy teacher (later in this message and others) viewed the names.

SANTA
RAPES
BELGARIAN
ELVESAND
REINDEER
WITH
PLEASURE

There were a couple of others that got netted in there too. "Belgarian" was a kid who never changed his name, but was dragged into the mess because it was incorportated into the sentence.

I understand that their accounts went dead at one point, while others worked on. Carey (aformention teacher) came out and read off the account numbers. There was some stupid punishment like essay apology or something.

Carey, who required perfect Enlgish in the comment areas (areas that are for remarks and explanations only that do not affect the functionality of the program whatsoever) and would scrutinize it continually until he was happy. He had a control issue, that showed well here. He had other things to do, yet logged on, read the names and found it appalling that teen boys would act like ... uh, teen boys.

Frankly, I think Frey, our teacher, wouldn't have minded at all or cared, as long as we got our assignments done by the end of the semester.

A few words about Carey: my folks know his family, so I never really had any opinion. I did have one when I saw his ... painfully useless critique of spelling, grammar, and sentence structure when it mattered to no one. Also, more to the point, his unlike-a-teacher comments to MR and Monkeyjack, indicating that they were losers and would grew up to be losers. I'm sure that MR and Monkeyjack can explain this better.

Middle School Madness (series) ep. 2

Swinford, our P.E. teacher in middle school was a riot. His guy's only statements and approach was funny, perhaps rude.

"[MR, using his last name here]! You still all worked up about that kid cuttin' a fart?" (stated while MR was nearly rolling on the floor with laughter).

"What happens if you don't follow my directions?"
"Gonna get in trouble" (was the mumbled response from someone)
Swinford, either making fun or clearly not hearing him, "Jump ya? What do you think he is ... a kangaroo?"

"What are you doin' over there?" stated to people not participating) "Go do a couple of laps!"

insult

whoever posted this should die of spam

oh, wait ... that's me

nice Scoobys

Lori was wearing a Scooby Doo shirt, some years back, and the graphics were over her chest area. I saw the shirt, thinking nothing, and said, "nice Scoobys".

"Oh. Is that what they're calling them", was Lori's quick response.

Speaking English

I don't have a problem with "español hablado aquí". I do have a problem with people writing it off as ... well, we need to offer Spanish. Okay, why not Japanese, Madarin, Cantonese, Burmese, Sudanese, Swahili, Farsi? How many Chinese-speaking person are there in urban areas? Where I am, "city of churches", many immigrants are brought over through a church group. They are friendless, helpless, and their English is poor. How do they get help ... um ... they learn English through low-cost and no-cost ESL and English language services.
I find that many Spanish speakers are, well, dis-interested in learning English because they don't have to learn it. There are Spanish channels, books in Spanish, etc. I realize that America is butted up against Mexico, a Spanish speaking nation and is neaCentralal America, a Spanish speaking region, as well as Spanish-speaking South America and Spanish-speakinCaribbeanan islands. I understand that English isn't spoken as much down there, because it isn't a national language. Like it or not ... English is America's official language. During America's inception, there was a vote. Votes for English and German were close, within one vote, but English won.
Even though there have great demographic shifts throughout the history of the US, English is still the official language. Sadly, urban areas allow non-English by principle. I remarked on an earlier post about Urbanese being a pat substitute for English. Sadly, laziness wins over reason and Urbanese is entered into standard American usage.
Personally, I think I can go throughout my life never using: bling, "g", pimp, tap, dat, thu, thugger, mack

"pimp my ride" -- really? You are going to allow others to drive your car, then charge them when they are done? Oh, you mean make it look like you are a pimp -- one who sells women and collects the money. That would make you a charming person, no doubt.
"g" I don't like the mafia. Why would I favor other gangs who can't spell?
"tap dat azz" -- I'm sure that all women secretly hope to be penetrated this way and being likened to a beer keg
"dat" -- apparently "th" (4-6 year old development) is too difficult
"ho" -- again, I'm sure that all women secretly desire to be referred to as inflatable, mindless sex toys or female beasts in estrus. Wasn't Soddom destroyed because of rape, beastiality and other deviances of nature, sex, and humanity?

I don't use the terms, because to use them, I accept the conditions of their being. I don't call women beasts or garden instruments. I won't pimp anything and prefer to use known languages not neologisms. *

* either real words with bizarre or completely different meanings, or completely self-generated words used by psychotics. That's right. You can start complaining and drawininferenceses here.

Communication turf wars

Locally, Comcast and Verizon are battling for communication to the house each now offering cable, high speed internet, and phone service. I hope that the consumer wins.

Comcast, who once tried to buy Disney, still raises its rates. Let's get that straight. A compnay, that had a ton of money, so much so, that it bid for Disney, doesn't have the money to lower rates? I think that statement doesn't even look good on paper, let alone bear out any reasonable scruntiny.

Even though Verizon is here, offering higher speed at lower costs, I haven't seen Comcast offer any better prices.
Verizon offers fiberoptic. Comcast offers coax.

A bit about Verizon:
The local phone service here is Verizon. Thankfully the wireless industry still has a number of names, though the competition is becoming smaller. If you get Verizon of lan line, like you have much choice, and them for wireless they screw you on one detail. If you call from your Verizon lan line to your Verizon Wireless phone, you get docked minutes. Am I missing something here? Doesn't the company have the same name ... same headquarters, same logo. You already have my money. Shouldn't I be able to call my cell phone without penalty or my home phone from my cell without penalty? How isn't that reasonable?
blankity blank blank money grubbers.

Comcast: from digital cable and high speed internet, monthly its around (meaning $2 less up to $30 more) $100 per month. Lets see ... for $1200 (about) annually, I get channels I'll never watch and ads on the view screen. If I'm paying $1200 annually, the company will allow me to select the channels that I will get, will deduct any and all money due to loss of signal (remember their little "done with the dish" ads). If you want to expand your selection, does a person come out to the house ... no. They change it there at Comcast. If you want to reduce your selection, there is a surcharge, other fees, taxes and a person comes to your house to "change" something.

Any phone company does something the same. If you want to expand the features on your phone, do they come out to your house ... nope. They do it at the center, free of charge. If you want fewer features, they charge you for the change. "Wellllll, (stated in song-like extended voice word that rhymes with duck) you!" *

* opening minutes of Friday, when Jehovah's Witnesses have a door slammed in their faces

Barnes & Noble

They're spammers! I'm again getting 2-3 email ads per week. The web site should be considered:
b-n.com
(ads) bar none

Spend money, spend money, rah rah rah!! We have Starbucks in our shops, but want to buy Starbucks so that we own everything.

You know what makes you a geek?

I noticed in this article, it didn't mention a family being wife, children, pets ... go figure.

Perhaps he has a Janeway (not tarzan, not Dick) complex?
Wacky? Make it so.

I suppose he was always looking for 7 of 9 instead of 6 & 9.